NatWest takes £24m hit from abandoned ‘Tell Sid’-style campaign

Bank left with costs from Sir Trevor McDonald-fronted campaign after early election halted rollout

NatWest was forced to spend £24m on the former Conservative government’s aborted “Tell Sid”-style campaign featuring Sir Trevor McDonald, which would have resulted in a chunk of the bank’s state-owned shares being sold to the general public in a highly anticipated privatisation drive.

The price tag emerged when the bank released its second-quarter results and announced it was snapping up a number of mortgages from the smaller rival Metro Bank for £2.4bn.

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Revolut finally receives UK banking licence after three-year wait

Move paves way for fintech firm to hold customers’ deposits and offer own-branded loans, including mortgages

Revolut has secured a UK banking licence – with “restrictions” – more than three years after Britain’s most valuable fintech firm lodged its application with regulators.

It is a milestone for the company, though it may still be some time before it can hold its customers’ deposits.

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Microsoft IT outage: Australian airlines, banks and supermarkets begin return to normal operations

IT support staff need to implement the fix in person, one computer at a time, experts have said

Supermarkets, banks, airlines and industries across Australia are slowly recovering on Saturday morning from the massive global Windows outage caused by a CrowdStrike software update gone wrong, with experts warning it could take weeks to resolve.

On Friday morning, the CEO of the Texas-based cybersecurity company, George Kurtz, apologised for the outage, and said it was not a cyber-attack, but a software update issue on its cloud-based cybersecurity platform Falcon for Microsoft Windows. It had since been fixed.

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Canary Wharf Group to carve chunks out of HSBC tower after bank’s exit

Revamp of 42-storey block when bank moves out in 2027 will include new terraces and leisure facilities

Canary Wharf Group has unveiled plans to remove large chunks from the HSBC tower as part of a revamp of the 42-storey office block when the bank moves out in 2027.

The property company said it would carve out sections of the tower’s facade to create terraces as part of plans to transform the office block – a skyscraper in the east London financial district – into a mixed-use building that would include leisure facilities and a public viewing gallery.

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Australia’s big banks lent $3.6bn to fossil fuel expansion projects in 2023, report shows

Lending puts banks in ‘complete violation’ of commitments to Paris agreement, climate group says, even as overall funding to sector ebbs

Australia’s big four banks are in “complete violation” of commitments to the Paris climate accord by funding fossil fuel expansion even as their overall lending to the sector continues to ebb, according to a new report.

The climate activist group Market Forces said in the report that the banks lent the industry $3.6bn in 2023, bringing their total loans to more than $61bn since 2015. Last year, though, was first year in the past eight that banks avoided explicitly backing a new or expanded fossil fuel project.

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Soaring government debt could roil global financial markets, warns BIS head

Agustín Carstens says world economy on course for ‘smooth landing’ after inflation but political turmoil poses risk

Rising government debt levels could disturb global financial markets, the head of the body that advises central banks said on Sunday before France’s high-stakes parliamentary elections.

Agustín Carstens, the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), said the world economy was on course for a “smooth landing” from the inflation crisis, but he warned that policymakers, especially politicians, needed to be careful.

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HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm breached money-laundering rules, regulator finds

Finma watchdog says bank failed to carry out adequate checks of two high-risk business relationships

HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm breached money-laundering rules by failing to carry out adequate checks on the high-risk accounts of two politically exposed individuals, Switzerland’s banking regulator has found.

HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) has been banned from taking on any new high-risk customers until it has completed a full review of its business relationships, Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) said.

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Australian banks to alert customers on interest rate moves under changes to get savers better deals

Move comes after consumer watchdog found banks were using pricing strategies that were highly complex or took advantage of the tendency to set and forget

People will be alerted each time their interest rate moves and when promotional offers expire under a suite of changes aimed at prodding bank customers to snag a better deal.

The federal government plans to act on a number of recommendations from two Australian Competition and Consumer Commission reports that found bank customers could earn and save more if not for barriers stopping them switching to better offers.

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London Stock Exchange CEO honoured in king’s birthday list

Julia Hoggett awarded damehood for services to business, while HSBC chair Mark Tucker receives knighthood

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The head of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the chair of HSBC are among the business leaders to be recognised this year in King Charles’s birthday honours list.

Julia Hoggett, a former banker who has been the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange since 2021, has been awarded a damehood for her services to business and finance.

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US bank Wells Fargo fires employees for ‘simulating’ being at their keyboards

Workers were sacked after review found they were ‘creating impression of active work’, says filing

The US bank Wells Fargo has fired more than a dozen workers for alleged “simulation of keyboard activity”, in an apparent attempt to fool their employer into thinking they were working.

The employees were “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work”, according to a filing with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

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Eurozone business activity grows as expected ECB interest rate cut looms

A 25 percentage point cut to main lending rate is forecast amid growth in Germany, Italy and Spain

Business activity grew across the eurozone at the fastest rate in a year in May while inflation cooled, according to data that will be welcomed by the European Central Bank (ECB) in advance of expected interest rate cuts tomorrow.

The latest HCOB purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data, compiled by S&P Global, showed private sector output expanded in most economies covered by the euro currency after growth in Germany, Italy and Spain was only marginally offset by a downturn in France.

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European and Canadian central banks expected to cut interest rates this week

New lower rates of 3.75% and 4.75% respectively are likely to be introduced this week after drops in inflation

Borrowers in the eurozone and in Canada are expected to get some relief from high interest rates this week.

After recent drops in inflation, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Canada (BoC) are forecast to lower their benchmark rates in the coming days.

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Goldman Sachs pay pot for bankers surges by more than 20%

First-quarter earnings show £580m pool, reflecting increase in share price as bonus cap scrapped in UK

London bankers at Goldman Sachs have seen their pay pot jump by more than 20% so far this year, as the bank’s surging share price added to the prospect of bumper payouts after bonus caps were lifted in the UK.

Filings covering Goldman Sachs International’s (GSI) first-quarter earnings show that it built up a $735m (£580m) pay pool in the three months to March, averaging out at about $218,000 (£170,000) each for its 3,359 staff, the bulk of whom are based in London.

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UK cannot afford to give ‘cold shoulder’ to China, says City minister

Bim Afolami’s comments distance British government from protectionist moves by US

The UK cannot afford to give the “cold shoulder” to China, the City minister said on Monday, in comments that will distance the British government from the Biden administration’s protectionist crackdown.

Addressing financial services bosses at the City Week conference in London’s Guildhall, Bim Afolami said it was “crucial” to engage with strategic competitors such as Beijing, and that the UK risked losing control of its economic future if it failed to find common ground.

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More than 6,000 bank branches now gone in nine years of ‘disastrous’ closures

Thirty-three constituencies, including two in London, will not have a single bank branch by the end of the year, says Which?

The number of UK bank branches that have shut their doors for good over the last nine years will pass 6,000 on Friday, and by the end of the year the pace of closures may leave 33 parliamentary constituencies – including two in London – without a single branch.

The tally is being published by the consumer group Which? as it seeks to make the “avalanche” of closures and the “disastrous” impact they can have on local communities an election battleground.

Barnsley East (estimated population: 94,000)

Bolton West (98,000)

Bradford South (106,000)

Bury South (103,000)

Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (102,000)

Chatham and Aylesford (103,000)

Clwyd South (70,000)

Colne Valley (112,000)

Dagenham and Rainham (117,000)

Denton and Reddish (88,000)

Don Valley (99,000)

East Worthing and Shoreham (99,000)

Erith and Thamesmead (117,000)

Glasgow North East (88,000)

Liverpool, West Derby (94,000)

Mid Bedfordshire (121,000)

Mid Derbyshire (83,000)

Newport East (84,000)

North East Derbyshire (92,000)

Nottingham East (98,000)

Penistone and Stocksbridge (89,000)

Plymouth Moor View (94,000)

Reading West (112,000)

Rhondda (68,000)

Sedgefield (85,000)

Sheffield Hallam (85,000)

St Helens North (100,000)

Stone (86,000)

Swansea East (81,000)

Warrington North (95,000)

Wentworth and Dearne (100,000)

Wirral West (68,000)

York Outer (92,000)

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‘Unfair banking’ and ‘damaging’ financial rules harming UK’s small firms, MPs warn

Treasury committee says ‘debanking’ and use of personal guarantees for loans is putting small businesses at risk

Unfair banking practices and “damaging” financial regulators are harming small businesses and putting innovation and growth at risk, parliament’s Treasury committee has warned.

A report from the committee’s inquiry into access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) said a lack of supportive policies were compounding problems for firms that had survived a “torrid” five years, which included the global pandemic and energy crisis.

“Confidence amongst SMEs in accessing finance has fallen and acceptance rates for business credit has lowered significantly,” the report said.

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Dividends payments soar globally as worker pay stagnates

Shareholder payouts grew 14 times faster than wages over past three years, says Oxfam report

Shareholders have proved to be more successful at securing bumper payouts than workers have at winning higher pay, according to two studies that show dividends outstripping wages by a considerable margin in recent years.

Oxfam said analysis of global data showed that dividend payments to shareholders over the last three years grew an average of 14 times faster than worker pay across 31 major economies.

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Barclays accused of greenwashing over financing for Italian oil company

Exclusive: Environmental groups say bank is misleading public over ‘sustainable’ financing for Eni as company vastly expands fossil fuel production

Barclays is being accused by environmental groups of greenwashing after helping to arrange €4bn (£3.4bn) in financing for the Italian oil company Eni in a way that allows them to qualify towards its $1tn sustainable financing goal.

Environmental groups have said the London-based bank is deliberately misleading the public by labelling the financial instruments as “sustainable” at the same time that Eni is in the midst of a multibillion-pound fossil fuel expansion drive designed to increase production.

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Barclays profits tumble 12% as UK interest rates hit mortgage demand

Pre-tax profits drop to £2.3bn between January and March, down from £2.6bn last year

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Profits at Barclays tumbled 12% in the first quarter, as higher UK interest rates weighed on demand for mortgages and loans and its investment bank was hit by a backdrop of economic uncertainty.

The UK bank said pre-tax profits fell to £2.3bn in the first quarter, down from £2.6bn last year, when it reported the strongest quarterly profit since 2011 after a string of interest rate hikes by the Bank of England.

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Global economic risks ‘could eclipse anything since second world war’, says JP Morgan boss

In annual letter to investors, Jamie Dimon warns ‘wars in Ukraine and Middle East could become far worse’

The boss of the US bank JP Morgan has warned that the world could be facing the most dangerous moment since the second world war, putting lives and economic growth at risk.

In his annual letter to investors, Jamie Dimon said the world had been “generally on a path to becoming stronger and safer” in recent years but had suffered a major reversal in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.

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